🚩 Warning 🚩

The author has not played LoL. This is solely based on the Lux comics and the cinematic given above. To the section of peeps who think Sylas is a manipulative jerk, yes I agree, he was one.

Try and stop me from doing this, anyway. I'm always a sucker for mages.

*Evil cackle*

Dedicated to the lovely ADancingDream. 😘

Without further ado, enjoy!

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The Red Stag inn served heavenly game roasts with a grape wine so foul, that Sylas' tongue still burned from his vomit. The air around him was laced with pepper and spice from the steam coming off the pheasant breasts. The sour stench of acid and meat attacked his nose just as quickly as the better ones had.

Brown hair, brown eyes, looks like a rat.

He could feel the neurotoxin work its way up his throat, his tongue turning numb and cold to the floor of his mouth within seconds. The wine left a deep maroon stain on the white sheets of his bed, the goblet rolling on the floor. His furs lay unkempt nearby, ransacked of even the last piece of gold.

The window on the right was open, and the street below busy as busy could be.

The innkeeper's daughter bit her lower lip as her magic fizzled in her hair. Her eyes were firefly green, her fingers driving the poison put of his veins with sparks of green electricity. The innkeeper's wife waited on a stool, a cold towel ready in a bowl of water.

Brown hair, brown eyes, looks like a rat.

He blinked hard, letting the tears stream down as the girl extracted the last of poison from his mouth before it stopped his heart. She conducted the plumes of purple into the water, and let out a sigh as the liquid and the towel turned salmon pink. The innkeeper's wife let the towel soak up every last bit of the pink concoction and ran out of the room.

"Is that it, dear?" Asked the innkeeper from the door, watching the imposing mage in the chair throw his head back on relief. The girl nodded and replied, "I've asked Mama to throw the water at the base of the birch tree. That should neutralize the effects of the Hinterlandian ivy. As for Mister?"

"Sylvester," said Sylas, grabbing the bed linens to wipe the sweat off his face.

"Mister Sylvester, I would recommend that you take rest. Your body deserves relaxation after the death grip the muscles had been in."

'Take rest' my arse, thought the mage as he watched the girl move out of the room to talk to her father. The squib was young, had brown hair, brown eyes and a face like a rat's. It shouldn't have been more than an hour since the break in. That matchstick wouldn't have made it out of town yet. What was that weird insignia he had on his tunic?

He called for the innkeeper as he got up from the chair and asked for a pot of hot water to bathe. He stumbled towards the window and leaned on the sill.

Ah, there it is! That son of a pox-ridden bitch, he's got the support of his whole pack, huh? They're everywhere.

"They're back at it again. Avion bandits from the Hinterlands, Mr. Sylvester," explained the healer as she drifted towards the window in response to the commotion. The Demacian towered well over the fourteen-year-old girl, his upper face hidden in the shadows above the small window, grey eyes glinting in the sun. Down in the street, a bandit smothered in black haggled with a crone over a beautiful pink gown. The scarlet songbird on his black neckerchief went darker with the spit of the old woman, as she crashed into the clothes in the aftermath of the backhanded slap.

"Ev-every single time, they just come in and take whatever they want, whoever they want and leave us all. . . broken. Nearly all of their wives and slaves were abducted from this town. Where's Mama?!" she whispered, pulling thick woolen gloves over her fingers, dulling the glow of her eyes into a deep forest green. Sylas hummed as one bandit hefted the unconscious salesgirl over his shoulders and walked off towards north. The old woman moaned in the dust of her rags, crying for her daughter's return. Sylas whistled when one of the others kicked her in the stomach, and leaned out of the window.

"Oy there, Ducklips. Yes, you!"

The healer girl grabbed him by the biceps and tried to drag him inside. The bandit turned slowly to look at him, the girl's brown hair swishing around like a curtain. His caterpillar brows furrowed, the folds on his forehead deepening into thick trenches.

"That's a pretty blade you've got on your person," said Sylas while climbing out of the window, ignoring the panicked whispers of the healer. "Now drop the girl, and waddle off before I give it a taste of its master's blood."

"Who the heck do you think you are, blockhead?"

"A real man, unlike the wimp of a farmboy pretending to play bandit standing below me," said Sylas from his seat on the window sill. The goons near the man sniggered into their palms and pulled out their blades from their scabbards. The bandit handed the salesgirl to a grunt nearby and unsheathed his sabre.

"You want to repeat that, you piece of sh-"

A tall bandit wove through the crowd, two sets of pearly whites all a-glimmer in the sun, carefree as a butterfly. He squinted to look at the Demacian, hands on his hips, and adjusted the giant sabre he had strapped on. The goons mobbed the new arrival like flies swarming to honey. The man shook their complaints off with little jests and waved at Sylas like a long lost friend. Sylas waved back at him thoroughly confused.

"Have a good day, lad," he chirped through his mop of black dreadlocks. "We'll be taking this young lady here to keep us company. It's a long journey to ol' Demacia up North, and without a good serf to massage them, these feet get tired and I get all cranky."

"And when I get all cranky," he started, pulling the fierce blade from his scabbard, letting the steel soak up the sunlight. The sabre was thick as a broadsword, fashioned like a scimitar of the desert tribes. The scratches and the bloody spots on it aroused his interest. He wasn't illiterate about the stories of bandits, who torched villages and raided camps of Demacian soldiers, murdering anyone caught in their path. His family had been held at innumerable sword-points in harsh winters for him to forget about bandits.

"I might end up rendering this little town unpopulated. Thank you for understanding. Farewell!"

"Just hold on for a second there, good sir," said Sylas leaping from the edge, to the tune of a female scream. He hit the ground with a thud, kicking up a blanket of golden dust around him as he landed. His knees buckled under his ripped torso, and he straightened slowly, letting his appearance intimidate the onlookers.

"He's a f****ing cuckoo-head, Lord Erson, a village idiot," commented Ducklips, fingertips testing the edge of his sabre. The bandits around him shifted in their thick soled shoes, flanking him and closing off any possible exits. Townsfolk ushered the old woman into the inn, deadbolts locking her in.

I left my shackles back at the camp. Sylas, you are stronger than that peasant boy from twelve years ago. You can fight these one, two, three. . . roughly twenty low-lives with bare fists. Easy, deep breath, easy.

Brown hair, brown eyes, looks like a rat. I must remember.

His eyelashes fluttered as dust rained from the fist moving above his face. He grabbed the arm behind the fist, and used the momentum to hurl the rest of the body into the debris of the clothes shop. The sting in his shoulders was nothing in comparison to the rogue sabre slash. It nearly took off his left ear, and Sylas reciprocated with a satisfying roundhouse to Ducklips' face. The punches flew around him, rib cages caved in to savage kicks, necks snapped under his blows, and swords cluttered the corpses.

He ducked away from the leader's sword, light as a hare on his toes, moving back as each swathe covered by the blade grew wider than the one before. Tiredness set in and his body began to remember the poison it had consumed in the morning.

Close shave, that one, he thought as a black lock, formerly of his head touched the ground. His fists crashed into his lower jaw and danced away from the slash. His legs felt like logs of timber, dragging him down while he dodged the attacks. None of the other bandits intervened, and Sylas deeply appreciated their respect for their leader. Gasps and pants became scarcely hidden with each passing minute, till finally, the town saw the two warriors duelling at the edge of the magnificent central fountain.

"H-hey cuckoo-head, you're good at th-his business," said the chief bandit, whom Ducklips had addressed as Erson.

"Th-hanks, been at it for quite sometime," muttered the mage, before he caught the chief by his neck and dunked it into the slimy water. His kneecap found a comfortable spot on the bandit's back and pressed into the flesh, trapping him. He pulled up the spluttering bandit's head, slapped the air out of his mouth, held him by his cheeks. "I was robbed dry this morning by a rapscallion wearing your very colours," he said flatly, "If you'd be kind enough to spare that poor girl, and hand over my money, I'd be very glad." The chief responded like a fish caught in open air, and was promptly returned to his habitat.

The townsfolk, inspired by the stranger in the inn, had joined in on their little scuffle, turning it into a full grown melee in front of the Inn. Their peace at the fountain was seldom interrupted, at times by a random corpse being flung away, and at times by a bandit trying to escape the messy fray. By the time the leader's clothes were rinsed clean of its dirt and blood with the dunking and the pulling, he began squealing answers.

"Milard, Milard, listen please! Stop, no more, no more! I'll talk, I'll talk, I'll talk. Urgh, we are called the Avion bandits, and our headquarters are in the Hinterlands. We rob, we kill and we do mercenary work for anyone with the cash and the wi-"

"Let me repeat myself, hogface," said Sylas, flicking pond scum off his fingernails. "Young lad of roughly fourteen, brown hair, brown eyes, looks like a stinking sewer rat. Took off with the hard earned money of my people, that I was entrusted with to buy essential commodities. Before I f****ing drown you in this, you better open that trap of yours and speak up."

Erson nodded and gulped. "The younger and new recruits are trained under Chantelle, Milard. I could take you to her, if you'd like. She has set up camp near the Greater Caverns north of this town. Good cave shrimp in the pools, and the reports of a strong, rogue Demacian mage and her followers having fallen down a pit-cave. She must be busy trying to recruit them into our brotherhood in exchange for rescue."

Sylas cocked his head, doubts flooding his mind. "A female Demacian mage, huh? Interesting, tell me more."

The bandit looked terrified for a second. "She'll have my head on a platter, Milard, that is confidential information."

Sylas smiled wistfully, making the bandit yelp as he let go of his collar. "Take me to her then, dear Erson. You're doing me a favour that I won't forget for the rest of my life."

Little Light, I'm coming.

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Tap

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Tap

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"Huh?"

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"Breakfast's ready, mage."

"What now?"

"Look at the size of that rat! It's like a god-forsaken animal den in here. Warden, if I don't see this cell cleansed by sunset, you can kiss your retirement plans goodbye. Mark my words."

"As you wish, Milady Crownguard."

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"It's freezing cold, Sylas. How come all the blankets I send you end up hugging that corner every single time?"

"Little light."

"Wake up, it's half past mid-day. I'll have someone scrub that grime off you today. There's a little something that I want to show you. I bet a whole cask of wine that you'll love it. I've been practicing this little trick for ages."

I missed your voice. It's been. . . so long.